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April 12, 2007

The mission of the Republican Party is to build campaigns as powerful as the ideas of its members through registration and support of like-minded candidates, party members were told during the annual Lincoln-Reagan Tribute Dinner.

Ron Nehring, chairman of the California Republican Party, along with other area conservatives pushed greater involvement and organization before nearly 180 people attending the annual event at the Heidrick Ag History Center in Woodland Tuesday.

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He was speaking on the "The Power of Republican Ideas," and was the featured speaker at the event, which also featured 2nd District Assemblyman Doug LaMalfa and 26th District Assemblyman Greg Aghazarian, who will be running for the state Senate in the 5th District next year.

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After talking about his own experiences in Iraq, which he said is getting better, Nehring turned to politics saying "political parties like ours are a necessary bulwark against tyranny" because they are organized around ideas and not individuals.

"In a democracy, when a debate about ideas - as it should be - then the debate becomes about which ideas," he said. "I'm a Republican because I know the core principles of our party - limited government, lower taxes, promoting personal responsibility, having a strong national defense, securing our frontiers - are the right ideas for our fellow citizens."

He noted these beliefs were designed to benefit everyone, not just those party members, but he also said if America is looked at as a series of movements, then the winners of any political contest over time is determined by the number of political activists on each side.

"Being right in the sense of being philosophically correct, is not enough to win," Nehring said.

"Our success as a political party depends on our ability to organize and communicate," he continued. "We need to maximize the number of people on our side of the aisle ...."

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Responding to applause, Nehring noted that history "has proven the power of Republican ideas" and cited the ability of President Reagan to achieve victory against the former Soviet Union.

"There are now 100 million people in the world today who are free because Ronald Reagan was right and Jimmy Carter was wrong," Nehring said, adding that Reagan never got the proper credit for his ideas.

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